


Of Ink and Cake Batter

by hizziesmemori



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Minor Luna/Raven Reyes, Modern AU, One Shot, Tattoo Artist!Emori, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, baker!murphy, like seriously this is disgusting, this is literally just fluff, way too much fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 12:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30105834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hizziesmemori/pseuds/hizziesmemori
Summary: Murphy and Emori make a cake. That’s it.Aka the tattoo artist Emori baker Murphy AU me and Jade were spamming Twitter about the other day.
Relationships: Emori/John Murphy (The 100)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Of Ink and Cake Batter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emorisupremacy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emorisupremacy/gifts).



> Hi!! This is just a fluffy one shot I wrote because me and Jade(emorisupremacy) were freaking out on Sunday about it. I hope you guys like it!
> 
> PS I didn’t edit this or read through it so if you see a grammar mistake no you didn’t <3

Emori loved the ding of the bell attached to the door of her tattoo studio. It usually meant a new customer coming in, or an old one- or sometimes even Raven dropping by during her lunch break- but at seven pm everyday, it was always John walking through the door to take her home. 

They couldn’t have gotten luckier as a couple, really. His bakery was just down the street from her shop, and Emori made her own hours, which meant they only needed one car to get to and from work everyday. Even before they had started dating- or were even friends- the placement of their businesses meant that she could stroll down to the little bakery across the road any time of the day and buy delicious pastries from the blushing boy behind the counter. 

Now, John leaned against the front desk of the studio with a box of leftover desserts for her in his hand while she finished up with her last client of the day. He had a tired but loving smile on his face when she snuck a glance at him.

Finally placing the bandage on the newly finished tattoo- a lion on the girl’s shoulder- she briefly explained the aftercare process to her customer, fully aware that Costia was a regular with her and already knew what to do. Emori admired her own artwork from a distance as she watched the girl leave the store with a ding of the bell. She wasn’t alone in admiring it, though.

“That looked really sick,” praised John as she approached him, tugging on the edge of his shirt and landing a kiss on his cheek.

Emori hummed her gratitude, eyes roaming from his face down his own sleeve of line art tattoos- all done by her, obviously- to finally rest on the box in his hand. She didn’t eat much while she was working, and she couldn’t wait to get in his car and devour what he brought for her.

Noticing her gaze, he pressed a kiss to the top of her hair with a laugh and took her hand to lead her outside to his car, watching patiently as she turned off the studio’s lights and locked up shop for the night.

The car ride to their apartment was silent as always, her placing one hand on his thigh as he drove, while the other munches at the blueberry muffins he brought her. She usually stared out the window at the highway, but tonight Emori watched him carefully.

John looked more tired than usual, and his jaw was tense as if he was stressed. It was a good thing that it was Friday and neither of them had to work tomorrow, because this way she could spend the night relaxing and cuddling him like he deserved. Emori was tempted to lean over to kiss his taut jaw, but figured this wasn’t the safest thing to do while he was driving, so she settled on giving the thigh her hand was resting on a small but reassuring squeeze. He blushed and smiled at her, switching hands on the wheel so he could hold her’s in his closer one.

Upon arriving home, they both practically collapsed on the couch of their small apartment, holding each other close enough to feel what they were missing all day. John’s eyes were already getting heavier, so she placed gentle kisses onto both of his eyelids and some less than gentle kisses all over the rest of his face. He laughed softly, and Emori relished the sound as she shifted to sit behind him and stroke his hair.

“Busy day?” she guessed, landing a kiss on his temple.

He hummed and curled further into her. “Yeah. Big wedding or something needed this super big, fancy cake. Jaha put me on the job alone, ‘cause of course he fucking did.”

Emori ran her fingers deeper into his hair to massage his scalp lightly. Her hand was a little sore from tattooing all day, but it was worth it to hear the gentle moan he let out at it. 

“Knowing you, I’m sure it turned out amazing. And now you get to have the whole weekend to relax. The only thing we gotta do tomorrow is go to Raven and Luna’s anniversary party, so we can-”

John’s eyes snapped open immediately at the mention of the party, and he practically jumped off the couch in a panic. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit. Fuck.”

Her attempts to calm him down and figure out what was happening were thwarted by him already being in the kitchen, pulling bowls of various sizes from the cabinets and pacing the tiled floor.

Emori came up next to him, stopping his frantic preparations to tilt his head to look at her. “Hey, hey, baby, what’s going on?”

He didn’t hold her gaze. “I fucking forgot, I promised Raven I’d make a cake for their party- fuck! I’m never gonna finish it in time, I’m such a fucking idiot-”

“Hey, don’t say that. You just forgot, we can figure something out.” 

That caused him to turn around from setting up his stand mixer to look at her, a baffled look on his face. “We?”

Emori smiled and clicked the beater into the mixer for him. “Obviously. You really think I’m gonna let you work your ass off in here alone? We’ll get it done in no time together. We do make a great team.” She punctuated the last part with a poke to his chest, making his lips quirk up a bit.

John leaned down to press a quick kiss to her lips, smiling. “Okay. Yeah, we can do that. Go wash your hands.”

“Alright, chef!”

“Quit it, Mori.” He rolled his eyes, but she could tell he was blushing a bit.

Emori winked. “Never, chef.”

She washed her hands quickly but effectively, turning back around to face John, who was scrolling through his phone with furrowed eyebrows.

“Okay… Raven wants a red velvet cake.”

“Aw, like Luna’s hair.”

“Yeah, yeah, adorable.” John was placing ingredients on the counter in a neat line, presumably in the order he planned to use them. “Great. We’re doing two tiers, so-”

“Oh, awesome! We only have to make two cakes?” Emori sighed in relief as she came to stand next to him in front of their workspace. This would be a piece of (coincidentally) cake.

That’s what she thought, at least, before he laughed and kissed the top of her head. “No, muffin, we’re making six cakes. Each tier has three. Plus a shit ton of frosting, so we better get to work.”

She nodded, smiling slightly at the nickname but overall disappointed. “What first, chef?”

“First, stop calling me that, and then you can start on the dry ingredients while I work on the wet.” John was already placing sticks of butter into the stand mixer. 

Emori stared at the various powders in front of her aimlessly. “How much of each one do I use?”

He blinked at her, then looked back at his mixer so he could pour an unmeasured amount of sugar in it. Wasn’t sugar a dry ingredient? 

“Uh you- okay you’ll wanna do like, uh, fuck. Nine cups of flour? Yeah, nine should do it. And then… baking soda… try three teaspoons. And just a little bit of salt. Maybe like- one and a half teaspoons. And for the cocoa powder…uh… like six tablespoons. You got that?”

Nodding slowly, she grabbed the bag of flour and the cup measurer, the whir of the stand mixer drowning her thoughts. It made sense that measurements became obsolete when someone is so used to making cakes, but she suddenly felt crushed under the pressure. Determined, Emori scooped the amounts he had told her into the bowl, producing large puffs of white in her face at her lack of gentleness. 

That was, until she got to the cocoa powder. She stared at the measuring spoons in pure bewilderment. He had said tablespoons for the cocoa powder, hadn’t he? She had been using teaspoons for the other ones. Had he been saying tablespoons the whole time? Emori looked over at him, and he was already cracking eggs flawlessly into the mixer and scraping down the bowl with a spatula. Was she supposed to be doing that?

Not wanting to embarrass herself, she settled on using tablespoons for the cocoa powder. If she didn’t think about it too hard, he definitely said tablespoons. He definitely did. He probably said it all adorably, too. Wait, probably? Did he say tablespoons at all?

Too late now, Emori thought as she mixed the dry ingredients together until they appeared combined. She stirred at it rather frantically, worried that she wasn’t mixing the stray powders at the bottom effectively. Finally, she figured it looked good enough, and carried the heavy bowl to the other side of the counter for his inspection.

“Is this good?”

He barely looked at it before going back to what he was doing. “Looks perfect, baby. Almost ready to add it. Love you so much.”

His jaw was clenched like it was in the car, but this time Emori didn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around his shoulders and kiss it. “It’s gonna be okay, babe. They’re gonna love it.”

“Just don’t wanna ruin their party,” John mumbled into her hair.

“You’re not ruining anything. You’re the best baker I’ve ever seen”- she landed a kiss to his cheek- “It’s gonna be so good.” A kiss on his neck. 

John looked visibly flustered- which was adorable, since they had been dating for almost three years- but still he smiled a bit and reached past her to grab her bowl of dry ingredients and the carton of buttermilk.

“What’s the difference between buttermilk and regular milk?” Emori wondered aloud.

He chuckled. “This one’s going in the cake.”

The stand mixer buzzed lowly as John began alternating between pouring in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk (once again, completely unmeasured). Watching the powders disappear into the forming batter seemed to relax him, which in turn relaxed her. Eventually, he switched the mixer off, seemingly thinking it was done. Emori didn’t agree.

“It’s not red.”

John smirked, walking to the other end of the counter and picking up a tiny red bottle, of which he squirted an excessive amount of drops into the batter. She stared into the bowl as he turned the mixer back on and the colours swirled together. 

“So it’s only red from food colouring?” Emori clarified, disappointed racking her features.

He smiled softly and wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Sorry, muffin. Wish I had better news for you.” There was genuinity laced in his tired voice, but he still laughed when she pouted.

When the batter was all finished, Emori greased the three smaller pans while he greased the larger ones, mindful to cover every nook and cranny of it. She would never forgive herself if she fucked up a whole tier because of her carelessness.

All six pans were filled and placed in the oven- a little bit of red batter getting on her fingers in the process- and she beamed at their progress. “Now we can relax for a while, right?”

John laughed and wetted a towel to clean the red smears off her badass hand, kissing the knuckles of it when he was done. “Nope. It’s frosting time.”

She almost let out a groan, but held it back just in time. The last thing Emori wanted was for him to think she didn’t want to be helping him.

Blocks of cream cheese were placed on the counter, causing her to raise her eyebrow. “There’s cream cheese in it?”

“I would hope so, or else it wouldn’t be a very good cream cheese frosting.”

“Yeah, yeah, smartass.” Emori switched their positions from before, hugging his waist from behind and resting her forehead on the back of his shoulder, her lack of height preventing her from resting on top of it comfortably.

He began preparing all the frosting ingredients in the mixer, and even though she wasn’t providing anything to the process but moral support, Emori felt exhausted. She was already tired and slightly sore from her day at work, but now there was flour blanketing her intricate tattoo sleeves and dusted all over her hair, and her upper arms hurt from mixing and pouring. Then, she reflected on just how little work she had done, and how John does this sort of thing everyday. This only made her hug him tighter, attempting to squeeze all her love and recognition into him through her embrace.

“Love you, babe,” Emori mumbled into his t-shirt. “You’re so good at this. So proud of you.”

John pushed her off of him lightly, and she thought she maybe said something wrong, but there was a soft grin on his face as he summoned a spoon from somewhere and fed her a little bit of finished frosting to taste. Emori hadn’t even noticed the mixer go on and off in the first place, but she wasn’t gonna decline a sample.

It tasted perfect. Not too sweet, but also not at all like the cream cheese she saw him make it out of. He must have been some kind of wizard to turn it into this. She hummed her approval, and he smiled, satisfied.

“ _Now_ , we can relax. Until the cakes are done, at least.”

They made their way back to the couch, where Emori sat upright in the corner and John laid horizontally across it, his head in her lap as she stroked his hair. They proceeded as they usually did, with him complaining about being under Jaha’s shitty management and how he couldn’t wait to have his own bakery one day. 

In turn, she told him about all the tattoos she had done that day, including a super detailed dragon on a woman’s back, a quote from a dead relative on a man’s arm, matching hand tattoos on two girls straight out of high school. They turned out nice, but Emori couldn’t help but worry every time she did tattoos like that. How could two people have something so permanent?

Then, Emori looked down at John, who had drifted off in her lap looking entirely too adorable, and she could completely understand it. He was her forever person, she never wanted to let him go. She wanted his kisses tattooed on her body, the sight of his smile ingrained in her memory, the sound of his laugh playing on repeat like it was her favourite song. 

Her finger traced over the line art tattoo of a muffin in the center of his sleeve, right on his bicep. It was one he had gotten for her- his muffin, she thought with a blush- only about six months ago. John had begged her to do it for him, and in turn she made him take the gun afterwards and tattoo his name on her inner wrist. She glanced at it now, nearly hidden by the waves of his hair she was petting. It was messy and imperfect, but out of all the tattoos she had ever gotten, it was by far her favourite.

When she heard the oven ding, Emori almost didn’t want to wake him up, but she knew she had to, so she gently nudged his arm to coax him from his short nap. He sat up with a groan, attempting to kiss her but missing her lips entirely. She laughed and ruffled his hair as they got up.

They removed the cakes from the oven- Emori burnt her finger a bit but kept it to herself- and somehow managed to fit them all in their tiny freezer to cool. Once they were in there, John started setting up his various piping bags for assembling while Emori sat on the counter and swung her legs.

He caught one of them when he was finished, moving in front of her and pulling her to the edge of the counter so her legs could encircle his waist. They both sighed into their lazy kiss, but when John started placing kisses down her jaw she stopped him and pulled him into a hug instead. No real reason, she was just tired and wanted a hug.

“You have flour in your hair,” John mumbled.

“So do you.”

He pulled back and ran his hand through his hair. “No I don’t-”

Emori reached back and stuck her hand into the flour back, sending a puff of flour to the top of his head with a smirk. “Now you do.” 

John laughed wholeheartedly, shaking the flour from his hair right onto her and holding her waist tighter when she tried to wiggle away. Their hands met at the flour bag, and they both giggled as they ended up playing tug of war over it, the end result being Emori pulling with such force that the bag tilted and spilled flour all over her torso. He laughed in victory, but she pulled him back into a hug to get flour all over his t-shirt.

After what felt like forever, John decided that the cakes were probably ready, and they removed them from the freezer so he could level them, which apparently meant to cut the tops off of them. The cakes plopped out of their pans with ease, and she was slightly proud with how well she greased them, though John didn’t notice.

“Can you assemble the smaller tier?” he asked.

“Uh, sure. Yeah, of course.” 

Emori had no idea how to assemble a cake tier, but she took the icing bag he handed her and tried to follow his movements. He made a circle of icing around the top rim of the bottom cake she did too, much less gracefully because icing bags were damn hard to manipulate, apparently. Then, he filled in the center of the circle with icing and evened out the whole thing with a spatula, which she attempted to copy. She had no idea how his turned out so smooth and perfect looking, because hers looked like an absolute mess. 

Still, Emori evened it out as much as possible so she could stick the second cake on top straight, and repeated the process with that layer, proud of herself when she got it a little smoother this time. She hadn’t anticipated how much of an arm workout icing would be at all, but definitely had a new respect for John’s biceps.

Placing the third layer on carefully, she looked over at John, who was already almost finished icing the sides in a thin layer. She pouted at him getting so far ahead of her, but started putting icing on the sides anyway.

“Not too much, baby.” John had finished with his tier, walking behind her to wrap his hands around hers and help her smooth the icing around. “This is the crumb coat, we’re not icing it just yet.”

“Are you sure you don’t just wanna take over? I’m really fucking bad at this.” 

He rested his head on her shoulder and smiled, still guiding her hands but not doing too much heavy lifting. “‘Course not. You’re doing amazing, muffin.”

It was crazy how after all this time they could still make each other blush so easily.

When both cakes were back in the freezer for reasons Emori didn’t understand, John took the little bit of the red food colouring from earlier to dye the icing a light pink colour.

“Don’t red and white look good together?” Emori asked.

“They do, I just don’t want it to look like a wedding cake.”

She smiled slightly, remembering the conversation she had had with her friend the other day. “Maybe you do…”

John looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. “What do you know that I don’t?”

“Plenty of things.” Emori smirked mysteriously. “Like how Raven is proposing tomorrow…”

He nearly dropped his spatula on the floor. “What? Wow, that’s amazing!” And then, “Shit, Mori, you didn’t tell me I was making a proposal cake!”

Emori laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “Calm down, it’s still their anniversary. Plus, Raven didn’t want you to know.”

“What the fuck, why not?”

“Because you can’t keep a secret, everyone knows that,” she said, rolling her eyes. Emori couldn’t wait for him to propose to her, she would figure it out before he even bought the ring.

John grumbled and she leaned into his side to cheer him up, which must have worked considering how he bent down and pressed a kiss to her nose. 

At some point John declared it was time to decorate, so Emori went to leave the kitchen to let him focus, but he grabbed her hand lightly before she could go. “Where are you going? You don’t wanna help decorate?”

“I’ll only mess it up.”

He pulled her back to the counter with his hands on his shoulders. “Bullshit. We’re in this together now, no backing out now.”

John left her there as he pulled the tiers out of the freezer to start icing. She was still unsure, especially considering how bad she’s done at everything so far, but if he really wanted her here she wasn’t gonna leave him.

“Okay, you’re on little tier duty again. That alright?”

Emori nodded, determined, picking up the spatula with her right hand so she could use her left to turn the little spinny thing John had put the cake on. 

She watched carefully as he plopped some pastel pink icing on the top of his tier, mirroring the motion. Then, he began to smooth the frosting on the top of the cake, carrying it down to the sides in one effortlessly sweep. Emori stared at her pile of frosting aimlessly, then attempted to copy what he had done, absolutely bewildered by the way his tier was already looking much more smooth. When she tried to spin the cake around to get the sides clean like he did, she made a massive streak in the side of the frosting. Sighing, Emori put her spatula down to wait for John to come help.

“I’m sorry,” she said as he walked over.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” John said, pulling her back over to the cake. “Come here, let’s fix it.”

He placed the spatula back in her hand, and she tried to protest but he was giving her that sweet look that always made her melt, so she just turned back towards her failure. John came behind her and covered her hands in his like he had before, steering the spatula over the top and sides until the mark was gone and it was looking as smooth as his.

“The trick is to keep a steady hand,” he said into her cheek before placing a kiss on it. “I know you’re great at that, it’s just different with a spatula than it is a tattoo gun. That’s why I fucked up your wrist tattoo so hard.”

“Shut up, you know I love it. Raven and Luna won’t love a fucked up cake.”

“Well that’s why we make such a good team.” John came in front of her just to smooth out the little imperfects left and spun it to show her how good it looked. Emori smiled at him and wondered how she got so lucky. 

After placing dowels into the bottom cake to support it, John carefully placed the second tier on top and cocked his head to check if it was even. He looked so cute when he did that, Emori thought.

He handed her a piping bag with a tip that resembled a star to make swirls on the top of the cake, while he iced intricate flowers on the bottom tier. She hadn’t noticed him setting aside some of the white frosting to make into different colours, but he must have because now he had green, lavender, and baby blue piping bags for his design. 

Emori was sitting criss cross on the counter behind the cake, going slowly in her attempt to use the right amount of pressure in her frosting swirls. When the top of the cake was circled with her little puffs, she placed pearly sprinkles onto the tops of them like he had told her to. They had been doing this part for about an hour now, and, not to toot her own horn, but she thought her tier looked pretty damn good. 

Craning her neck to look at what he was doing on the front of the cake, she saw that it was being adorned with a sash of pastel purple and blue flowers with green leaves sticking out of them, which he continued up the second tier. Emori couldn’t even believe he had done all that in the time she had made a few ruffles, it looked absolutely incredible. 

All done with her part, she hopped off the counter to get a napkin, wiping the little beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he piped. 

John laughed. “Thanks, babe. Love you.”

“That looks amazing, John. I told you it would be. They’re gonna love it.”

Finishing off one last frosting leaf, he placed his piping bag on the counter, and leaned back to admire his work. “It does look pretty awesome, doesn’t it?”

She wrapped her arms around his waist behind him and laughed. “Time to clean out the fridge so we can fit it?”

“Yep.”

They had to take a whole shelf out of their refrigerator to accommodate the height of the cake, just putting all the stuff on it into the freezer because, hey, cold is cold. Finally closing the fridge on the cake felt like the biggest accomplishment of the night.

That was, until John swooped her up in his arms and placed a big loving kiss to her lips, his hands holding onto her waist tightly. Emori laughed a little into the kiss, meeting him with the same love and passion he had met her with.

“Thanks for helping me, Mori. Don’t know what I would do without you,” he said into her temple.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, kissing his jaw. “You’re never gonna have to find out.”

John hummed into her hair, before realizing his mistake and wiping flour from his lips with a wince. “We should probably take a shower, huh?”

Emori ruffled his hair a bit, watching flour fly out of it. “Yeah, definitely.”

He smirked and dragged her into their bedroom by her hand, and soon the only noises filling their tiny apartment was the sound of running water and happy giggles from two people in love.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for the nickname it was just too cute


End file.
